Educated in both the UK and France, Catherine’s expertise and research on Yemen have been quoted by the UN Security Council on several occasions since 2011.

She consulted for the UNSC from 2014 to 2016 on Yemen’s war economy.

A talented and passionate speaker, as well as a gifted writer Catherine has been instrumental in breaking media silence over Yemen’s war, and the tragedy which has befallen the impoverished nation. A keen geopolitical analyst her work and research have already been hailed by her peers as insightful, honest, and refreshingly uncanny.

She is a researcher with Al Bayan Centre for Planning & studies and the founder of Veritas-Consulting.

Catherine is currently working on several book projects which are scheduled to be published in 2019.

Since 2015 she has consulted for the Al Baqee Organization – a grass-root organization dedicated to the conservation of the world religious and cultural heritage as well as the denunciation of religious persecution by Saudi Arabia.

In October 2018 the Al Baqee achieved a major milestone as its recommendations were presented to the United Nations Human Rights Council.

“A superb synthesis that distills the essence of Islam in theory and practice. Arabia’s Rising by Catherine Shakdam provides a concise yet comprehensive understanding of the Islamic worldview. Written in small segmented truth-bytes, which can be assimilated by lay and academic audiences, the author weaves past, present, and future seamlessly in a captivating narrative of cosmic consequence.” Dr. John Andrew Morrow, Senior scholar of Islam

Available to buy on Amazon

A SHAFAQNA PUBLICATION – Shafaqna is proud to present its second publication this year by Catherine Shakdam – Director of Programs for the Shafaqna Institute for Middle Eastern Studies.

An incredibly important book, A Tale Of Grand Resistance: Yemen, the Wahhabi, and The House of Saud holds a mirror to those dynamics, and those narratives which have ravaged Yemen, and plunged this one nation of Southern Arabia into the pyres of war.

If Yemen managed to resist the Ottomans, the British Empire and pretty much all other imperial powers which ever attempted to subdue and control its people, the sons of Hamdan almost lost their freedom and national identity to the hegemonic ambitions of the House of Saud. Today Yemen is breaking free from the shackles of covert imperialism, learning once more to stand tall in the face of oppression. And though the impoverished nation is undergoing the growing pain of political empowerment, stumbling at times as a new generation of leaders are being made in the trenches of the Resistance movement, the sons of Hamdan are defiantly reclaiming their history, their land, their nation. As Yemen rises once more, it is a nation-state which will reclaim its place at the world table – with Yemen, Southern Arabia could witness the rise not of a political giant but a liberation movement echoing of the hopes first enounced by Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini (1979), when he first proposed an alternative to western capitalism as the only democratic model. Betrayed by their leadership, lost to corruption and bogged down by poverty Yemen’s long descent to the abyss can be traced back to 1994, when former President Ali Abdullah Saleh made a pact with Riyadh – military and financial support against the Southern Secessionist Movement – in exchange for Yemen’s heart and soul.

Those Highlands the kingdom knew it could not militarily over-run, it chose to insidiously transform through the export of Wahhabism and Salafism. Former President Saleh opened Yemen up to Al Saud’s ideological devolution in the name of territorial unity. And if Yemen’s house stood united for a while, forced into a marriage of political and economic convenience by those ambitious men who failed to see past Saudi Arabia’s imperial manipulations, the poison of sectarianism came to undo.

Yemen’s road to freedom would come by way of a counter-revolution, or rather a liberation, as the rise of the Houthis would mark the country’s real democratic awakening. Often dismissed by local political observers as they carry the stigma of the former regime, the Houthis, a Zaidi group organised under the leadership of Abdel-Malek Al-Houthi with a tribal base in northern Sa’ada, have long shed their “rebel group” label. They have been reborn as a powerful and popular political movement. If the Houthis, a formerly obscure band of tribal fighters, could be sneered at back in 2009 and shrugged off as wannabe Shia rebels by Yemen’s high and mighty, the 2011 uprising levelled the political field to such an extent that they have come out of the revolutionary storm like a shiny new penny.

The book is now available worldwide through Amazon

For signed copies please refer to info@veritas-consulting.one for further details and instructions.

A SHAFAQNA PUBLICATION – While History remains a subject of contention within the Islamic community as it often forces to look upon those actions, and those events which defined, shaped and at times divided us, History stands as well a guidance for those humble enough to see NOT blame but an injunction to do better.

From Mecca to the plain of Karbala: Walking with the Holy household of the Prophet,

by Catherine Shakdam deals first and foremost with History as it recalls the tragedy of Karbala and the martyrdom of Imam Hussain by looking into those events which led to his rising against Tyranny.

Directed at Muslims and non-Muslims alike this body of work ambitions to shed light on a movement which to this day is anchored in Islam’s greatest principles: that of Justice, that of Jihad, which contrary to popular belief is not a call for war but justice – that in the face of oppression one must speak Truth.

A son of Islam, the progeny of the Prophet Muhammad, Imam Hussain has towered a revered figure of Islam – an example of courage, compassion, resilience, dignified piety, and grace. It is so that the world could learn of his deeds and speak the true name of Islam that this book was written.

We hope you will hear Hussain ibn Ali’s cries of freedom and remember what the grandson of the last Prophet of God sacrificed so that God’s religion would be restored.

From the cave of Hijra where Jibreel first spoke to Muhammad ibn Abdullah, to the plain of Karbala where Hussain ibn Ali drew his last breath, it is always liberation from falsehood Islam spoke of, and fought for.